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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24942619">Overworked</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Houdinimag/pseuds/Houdinimag'>Houdinimag</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Sick Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:54:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>817</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24942619</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Houdinimag/pseuds/Houdinimag</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aaravos finds Astoria, his protege, sick in bed. Why did she work so hard in recent days?<br/>A fic for my sister, as a gift for her Own Character, Astoria who lives with Aaravos as his student, way before they got closed up in the mirror.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Overworked</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Astoria woke up with a splitting headache that morning and an urge to vomit. Her hair looked like a bird’s nest and the deep bags under her eyes clearly told a story of many sleepless nights. It was her usual appearance when she got into a nearly maniacal state of creative exploration. In science. And dark magic.</p><p>She might have underestimated her endurance when reading books until 3 in the morning, at least five nights in a row. She could have stopped when the potions she created had to be tested on something and she refused to give them to her spider. Nah, she was the best test subject, after all, confirmed by her sun elf friend, Pellen.</p><p>Now she wonders if she could have slowed down a bit. “You need to measure your power and the need to restore it”, her teacher would say. Grumpy old bat. Handsome one sure, and extremely intelligent, but also incredibly annoying. He always gave her stupid advice, like she didn’t know better. (she did, but preferred to do things her own way)</p><p>No regrets, they say. It’s gonna be fun, they say.</p><p>Nope.</p><p>A shadow loomed over her body and someone tsk-ed in a deep voice.</p><p>“You overworked yourself again, didn’t you?”, he sighed.</p><p>Astoria wanted nothing more than to curl into a soft cocoon of pillows and darkness. Let it consume her forever.</p><p>“I’m dying”</p><p>“You’re not. All you need is sleep. I shall bring you something to ease the pain.”</p><p>He walked away and in the meantime, Astoria had figured out at least a hundred ways to kill oneself. Gods, the headache was terrible. How did she get it? Oh, yeah. The acidic potion fumes would gather in her room and as usual, she forgot to open the window because writing down her ideas seemed more important at the time.</p><p>Five minutes later, she received a small pink bottle and immediately grimaced. “I’m not a kid anymore, Aary.”, she grunted. “I can take the black bottle.” She never told him, that she actually hated the taste but the bottle looked really ‘cool’ and had ‘dark magic vibes’. Aaravos scoffed and pointed the spoon at her mouth. “Open up.”</p><p>After she took the medicine, her teacher closed the curtains in the room and then, as he was about to leave, he glanced at her desk. It was groaning under the number of notes, failed experiments and hundreds of books and scrolls. He picked up one book which said “The history of the Elvenkind”. There were also titles like “Elven genealogy” or “advanced biology and genetics”. He frowned.</p><p>“What were you trying to accomplish, if I may ask?”</p><p>Astoria hid behind the pillow. “Nothin’”</p><p>He raised his eyebrow. “That doesn’t look like nothing to me.” He peered over her desk and saw a short note of using dark magic to find out your family tree. Specifically, how to track down your blood family.</p><p>Aaravos felt that long-forgotten pang of guilt in his chest.</p><p>“Are you looking for your parents? After all this time?”</p><p>“Always”, she said.</p><p>That seemed very peculiar to the startouch elf, who pondered over her words. They didn’t make sense to him.</p><p>“I thought you resented them for abandoning you?”</p><p>“I do.”, she responded shortly.</p><p>“Then why would you look for them?”</p><p>“I want to kick their asses.”</p><p>He smirked at her response and shook his head. That girl had a fire in her that would rival the most stubborn Sun elves. Including her best friend. And yet, he swore he could hear a note of sadness in her voice. He walked up and sat by her side on the bed.</p><p>“Is that all? You wish for revenge?”</p><p>Astoria snuggled up tighter in her cocoon. Clearly, she never spoke about her true feelings if this conversation was embarrassing her. Perhaps he could heal her a bit.</p><p>“You gonna stop me?”, she muttered.</p><p>“No, I’m going to help you.”</p><p>The cocoon stopped shaking and the pillows parted to reveal a dark-skinned face with even darker hair.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“If you wish to show them how much they’ve wronged you, then by all means, I can help you. You have every right to be angry. That does not mean you can just neglect your own health.”</p><p>She scoffed. “Yeah, I know.”</p><p>“I’ll look at your notes. They were very well done, which is something I cannot say about your homework.”</p><p>“ugh…”</p><p>“Sleep. We will work tomorrow.”</p><p>She covered herself with the pillow again and the night claimed her dreams. Aaravos closed the doors. He took the notes to work on them later. His own project can wait. This was something that he and Astoria could bond over, as he also had his fair choice of words to say to her ‘parents’. Oh, nothing as serious as blasting them with a fireball. No, nothing like that. His methods were more subtle.</p>
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